Posts Tagged ‘Heather-Locklear’

I really didn’t want to believe the rumors since they’ve been dogging us fans for so long, but I’m sad to say that Melrose Place has been canceled according to a media columnist at The New York Times. The CW is staging the official presentation of its fall lineup tomorrow, but some media outlets have already received the schedule. I was holding out hope for renewal, but if the news is reported in the Times, it’s safe to say it’s true. The CW is pretty niche-targeted but apparently the ratings never reached the mass numbers needed to justify the expense of producing the show. To the producers’ credit, the show never looked cheap and, for viewers with an appetite for over-the-top melodrama, the revamp delivered. Some moves were off-the-mark from the start, like casting Ashlee Simpson-Wentz, and I still believe they would have attracted more eyeballs had they done some stunt casting with high-profile names from the worlds of reality shows and music. I could have pictured Lady Gaga or Kim Kardashian having fun with Katie Cassidy’s uberpublicist Ella Simms, even in cameo appearances. Bringing Heather Locklear back was a smart move, but her storyline was a snooze. If nothing else, the show will be credited for showcasing the talents of the charismatic Katie Cassidy. Her unexpectedly nuanced portrayal of a potentially one-note character like Ella revealed that there’s much more to her than a bright smile and mile-long legs. I’m sure we can expect to see more of her in the near future. On a personal note, I want to thank everyone who checked in with the Melrose Again blog to keep up with my episode recaps and musings about the Melrosers. It has been a blast and I hope you enjoyed it as much I have. Not that I’m giving up blogging, mind you. I recently revived my True Blood blog www.BitingRemarks.wordpress.com. Check it out if you’re a fan of Sookie & Co. Have a great summer!

April 13: Hormones are raging at Melrose Place as Jonah and Ella finish a rather rigorous round of sex. Jonah (Michael Rady) likes a lot of things about his fling with Ella (Katie Cassidy), but his thoughts are elsewhere. Riley, meanwhile, is having her own cozy morning-after moment with Drew (Nick Zano), who gives her the painting Sydney had given Auggie. Could it be the priceless artwork Amanda’s been looking for all this time? Riley and Jonah split up their belongings and take a trip down memory lane, remembering their good times together. Their nostalgia is further stoked when they attend a reunion of their alma mater, NYU, and run into another couple that reconciled after breaking up. The couple’s shock at hearing of Jonah and Riley’s bust-up gives them food for thought. The day’s warm feelings cause a friendly goodbye hug between them to turn into a kiss and Jonah suggests they reconcile, but Riley is sure that she has changed too much to return to the way things were. A dejected Jonah takes his box of stuff and leaves. Meanwhile, a perky-looking Sydney (Laura Leighton) appears to Amanda (Heather Locklear) in spectral form a la “A Christmas Carol” and warns her not to make the same greedy decisions Syd made so she won’t end up like her… alone, miserable and dead. Amanda ignores Spiritual Sydney’s advice and gives Ella the heave-ho at WPK, slapping her in the process. A demoralized Ella, however, has a stroke of luck when she runs into Riley and convinces the gullible girl to let her have the painting Drew gave her, suspecting it’s the hot art that Amanda’s clamoring for. Applying a bit of paint thinner to the piece, Ella is pleased as punch to discover her hunch is right. Time to pay Empress Woodward a visit!

Will the residents of Melrose Place return next season?

Battle of the Blondes

Ella shows Amanda the painting and strikes a deal for Amanda to clear her of the embezzlement charges and bankroll a startup PR firm for Ella featuring her best WPK clients. Amanda agrees to draw up a contract. At the hospital, Drew continues his campaign to stop Michael (Thomas Calabro) from transplanting his defective heart valve into more patients. When Michael seems to relent and asks Drew for his research, a relieved Drew shares the news with Lauren, but a supply of drugs are conveniently found by hospital security in his locker. Lauren has problems of her own. David (Shaun Sipos) is still reluctant to forgive her for turning tricks and, unbeknownst to Lauren, he continues to be pressured by mob daughter Morgan (Melissa Ordway) into being her consort under the threat of exposure to her intimidating dad. At the opening party for Coal under David’s ownership, couples are in a major state of flux. Ella balks when Jonah tells her about his kiss with Riley and dumps him. Morgan boldly introduces herself to Lauren (Stephanie Jacobsen) as David’s new girlfriend, hoping to drive a wedge between them, but her ploy backfires, reuniting them instead. Daddy’s little girl is not happy. David and Lauren make plans for a romantic dinner, but Morgan’s mobster dad shows up at Coal and, after roughing him up, threatens to harm Lauren to force David to work for him as his personal thief. Like daughter, like father, it seems. Lauren, meanwhile, stands up to Michael in the operating room and shares with the surgical team the issues with his toxic valve. Drew is off the hook, thanks to Lauren, but when Riley confesses her kiss with Jonah, he shares that he himself was a recipient of Michael’s heart valve and he doesn’t know how much time he has left to live! At WPK, Ella arrives to collect her payoff from Amanda, who tries to wriggle out of the deal through some fine print in the contract. Ella reveals that she, too, had a back-up plan and shows Amanda photos of herself fencing the hot artwork taken by her very own private detective, who was disgruntled about being cheated by Amanda. Sydney DID warn her, after all. Some FBI agents arrive and arrest her. The war’s not over yet, Amanda warns a momentarily unnerved Ella. A wicked glint returns to Ella’s eye as she watches the feds lead Amanda away in handcuffs. There’s a new queen bee at WPK… and Melrose Place! To be continued?

The season finale of Melrose Place is just days away and YouTube footage from The CW Network reveals that the cat-and-mouse game between Amanda and Ella comes to a head with Amanda (Heather Locklear) firing Ella (Katie Cassidy), and slapping her for good measure. However, preview photos posted to the CW’s website lead me to conclude that Our Miss Simms delivers a potentially lethal blow to Empress Woodward in the episode’s closing moments. In the photos shown here, Ella arrives at WPK, presumably after Amanda had fired her, dressed in an updated version of Amanda’s classic miniskirt-suit with a rather smug look on her face. She shows a tense Amanda some information on her Blackberry (evidence perhaps?). The tip-off shot looks suspiciously like a victorious Ella standing in Amanda’s office looking on as something happens in the WPK lobby. Might it be Amanda being led away by the cops in handcuffs? In other finale news, look for Drew (Nick Zano) to come up against Michael (Thomas Calabro) about the defect in the dastardly doc’s heart valve, with dire consequences for one of them. David (Shaun Sipos) and Lauren (Stephanie Jacobsen) reconcile, but Morgan (Melissa Ordway), in true “Fatal Attraction” style, will not be ignored. Her revenge puts one of the reunited lovebirds in danger. Sydney (Laura Leighton) makes a welcome return appearance and Jonah (Michael Rady) asks Riley (Jessica Lucas) to take him back (yawn!). Tune in April 13. All Melrose fans with Twitter accounts should tweet as much as possible about the show in the coming days and use the hash tag #SOSMelrosePlace so that Melrose Place trends strongly. We fans need to let the CW Network know we want more Melrose!

Does Sydney Andrews, played by the adorable Laura Leighton, have nine lives? Everyone who saw the previews of next week’s season finale surely noticed that Sydney has a scene, which presumably will be another flashback. Since the April 13 episode will bring the missing artwork storyline to a boiling point at the WPK offices, it stands to reason that Syd pops up in Amanda’s memory (or Ella’s) to shed light on where the damned piece of art was. Judging from the shot I found on the CW’s website, Syd’s looking very smug, like she’s rubbing salt in someone’s wounds. Maybe she appears to Amanda as a ghost to get in some digs about how Ella outsmarted her. Call me crazy, but I started thinking maybe the Melrose writers might throw us a zinger and reveal that Ms. Andrews is still alive. Hey, they already did it once to kick off the new show, so although it seems unlikely, I wouldn’t put it past them. Another reason this idea is buzzing in my head is because next week’s TV Guide is downplaying the season finale while ABC’s Ugly Betty, which is definitely signing off, got a full-page article. Now this could be good news, meaning not even TV Guide knows whether the show is gonna get axed or not. Maybe, just maaaybe, the CW is still contemplating renewing it (I hope! I hope! I hope!). On page 40, the Highlights section of TV Guide says: “At press time, it was still the ‘season’ finale, but that could change. Just like Sydney’s death status!” Was that a subtle hint? Maybe I’m overthinking it because I love Sydney. I always have. I guess we’ll find out next Tuesday. At least we know she’s gonna be wearing some killer shoes. Eat your heart out, Ella!

Next Tuesday, Amanda Woodward (Heather Locklear) finally finds the $19 million painting she’s been searching for since she returned to Melrose Place in November. The problem is that Ella (Katie Cassidy), her newly sworn enemy, has it, and boy is she making good use of it! In the new clip on the CW’s YouTube channel, Our Miss Simms confronts Empress Woodward with her ill-gotten goods and has every intention of returning it to her former boss… right after she gets cleared of Amanda’s embezzlement charges AND receives a generous severance package that will set her up in her own PR firm. Will Amanda cave to her protégée’s demands? It looks like the student has learned well at the feet of the master. Tune in April 13 for the season finale!

April 6: Riley (Jessica Lucas) is the center of attention as she plans a fundraiser for her inner-city schools project with the encouragement and support of Drew, which draws the jealous attention of Jonah (Michael Rady). Casting for Jonah’s film hits a snag when he clashes with the director over the pivotal casting of the character based on Riley, whom Jonah describes in near angelic terms. It’s evident he’s missing what he had with her, but the director doesn’t have time for Jonah’s sentimentalism so he cans him. Riley’s fundraiser, meanwhile, starts off slowly and then livens up when Drew (Nick Zano) gets uptight rich guests to loosen up in kiddie-style street fair attractions and entertains them with some tunes. When he spontaneously auctions off a date with the seemingly irresistible Riley, Jonah shows up (of course) and joins the bidding, nearly winning the date until Ella outbids him using money from WPK’s charity fund. Might Amanda (Heather Locklear) use this in her embezzlement scheme against Ella? Jonah shares his movie troubles with Riley and she advises him to not compromise his vision. His pleas to the studio head to keep his movie intact as he wrote it fall on deaf ears until the star, Owen Anderson, fires the uncooperative director and replaces him with Jonah. When Jonah tries to share his latest triumph with Riley, he finds she’s too busy celebrating the success of her fundraiser with Drew.

Ella’s Mission Impossible

Ella (Katie Cassidy) may be getting jealous over Jonah’s lingering feelings for Riley, but she’s got bigger fish to fry, namely breaking into Amanda’s computer files at WPK to delete the fake billing statements incriminating her. Jonah frowns on her plot, but clues her in about the nerdy WPK accountant who holds the keys to the central computer files. Ella dons a hot minidress and meets the numbers-cruncher for a hilarious blind date at the local movie theater, all the while trying to swipe his keys. When the sci-fi geek gently tells her they aren’t a good match (since when is a tall, gorgeous blonde not someone’s type?) Ella pulls him close to plant one on him and deftly removes the WPK key from his key chain. Point for Team Ella! Miss Simms’ next move is to recruit the cat burglar skills of David (Shaun Sipos) for her WPK caper. David, however, has his hands full trying to keep Coal afloat after firing crazy head chef Marcello, who abuses his staff one too many times, and losing a few employees in the bargain. Lauren (Stephanie Jacobsen) shows up and calls on her old waitressing skills to help David as a hostess while Ella pitches in too, attending to an influential restaurant critic (played by Broadway legend Betty Buckley, of all people!) who can make or break Coal with one review. Ella’s inside knowledge about the critic helps David hit all the right notes on the meal and the restaurant gets a rave review. David is touched by Lauren’s support and seems ready to give her a second chance. Indebted to Ella, he helps her break into WPK only to discover the accountant’s key doesn’t grant access to Amanda’s secret computer files. Their next stop is Empress Woodward’s office, where David and Ella discover a file on Sydney with a picture of the $19 million painting that disappeared from an Upper East Side apartment back in New York City. Has Ella found leverage against Amanda? At the hospital, Lauren catches Drew drawing blood from the body of a young man who died despite Drew’s attempt to save him. Drew later reveals to Lauren that he’s been removing the heart valve Michael invented from several people who died due to poisoning from a toxin that leaks from it. Looks like next week’s season finale will find Melrose Place’s diabolical duo Amanda and Michael under fire from the new generation of Melrosers. Tune in April 13!

There are two more episodes of Melrose Place left and before the big finale airs I thought it would be good to review what’s been working for the show. Based on upticks in page views of this blog over the past seven months, I’ve determined which stars and plotlines were hits with the viewers and am sharing the results with my followers as a top-ten list. This is all VERY unscientific and some of it seems pretty obvious (i.e., Ella’s shoes), but hey — it’s fun, so without further ado, I present the ten most popular Melrose-related search topics according to yours truly. Hopefully next year I can do a rundown of season two’s hot subjects.

#10 – Victor Webster as Caleb – The Melrose producers may not have chosen to keep Caleb around when Heather Locklear returned as Amanda, but a post I made back in January suggesting he be brought back STILL is getting hits and is one of the few posts to elicit comments from diehard Melrose fans. A missed opportunity indeed.

#9 – The Melrose Place spread in Entertainment Weekly – Melrose fans really liked the shot of the new cast featured in the Fall TV Preview issue of Entertainment Weekly. My scan of the two-page spread is one of the most popular images that leads people to Melrose Again through image searches.

#8 – TV Guide’s behind-the-scenes tour of Melrose Place – Melrose fans were very eager to have the show return after nearly three long months of reruns, so when TV Guide ran a full page of photos of the cast with commentary from gorgeous Stephanie Jacobsen (Lauren), my scan got a big welcome from Web surfers.

#7 – Is Violet Sydney’s nutcase daughter? – We now know that a biological link was the reason for the eerie similarities between the dearly departed Sydney Andrews and fellow carrot-top troublemaker Violet Foster.

#6 – Josie Bissett’s guest appearance – Jane is anything but plain judging from the hits I still get from people Googling for pictures and information about her portrayer, Josie Bissett. Maybe she should return permanently.

#5 – Melissa Ordway, Melrose’s newest bombshell – She’s only been in two episodes so far, but this sexy blonde has made a big impact with Melrose fans curious about Morgan, the new girl in town.

#4 – Jane and Ella’s fashion statements – The shot I posted of Jane and Ella in designer threads is a super popular image on this blog. Most of the searches seem to be about the killer shoes Ella tends to wear.

#3 – Vanessa is revealed as Sydney’s killer on December 8 – The Melrose producers may have thought the murder mystery was too dark for the masses, but my post about the exciting episode that solved the crime is the most popular storyline among Melrose Again visitors so far. I’ve gotten views from as far as Germany.

#2 – Katie! Katie! Katie! – It’s all about Ella, folks. Katie Cassidy is by most accounts the show’s breakout star and page views on this blog zoom whenever she or her character are the subject of a post. Like I said, obvious stuff.

#1 – My theory that Vanessa offed Sydney, posted before the December 8 episode aired, is my most popular entry so far. Although subsequent posts have garnered big view tallies, this item still gets hits from all across the world since Melrose aired later in other countries.